These Are the Records That Were Spinning In My Neighborhood

I've been putting off blogging by watching all kinds of useless junk on the internet, such as this band that dresses up like Transformers and plays songs from "Transformers: The Movie," the animated movie from 1986. Aren't those costumes fantastic? But I can't help but feel sorry for the guy stuck portraying Spike, the earthling and friend of the Transformers. It's as if they ran out of money on the other elaborate costumes and just stuck him with a factory jumpsuit and a hard hat.



Tomorrow I'm going out to the suburbs for a record sale hosted some dude in his garage. He says that if you show him on your phone that you have shared the link to the add to someone else on Facebook, he will give you an ice cold Old Style tall boy. For my European readers (okay, reader, let's face it), Old Style is a cheap beer sold only in the midwest, and tall boy means a 16 ounce can. It seems this guy has way too many records and decided to take a couple days drinking beer in his garage and selling a bunch of vinyl. It's only a town or two over from my parents' place, I like beer, and I like records. How can I say no? The plan is to drop my very pregnant wife off at work and drive right out into the suburbs to thumb through stacks and stacks of vinyl while sipping on a cool one. What a great way to end the summer!

No idea who this guy is, but is he more proud of his lady or the beer?

Speaking of the very pregnant wife, it's now the 25th of August, and our due date is September 12th. We have the crib set up in the bedroom, and sometimes we will walk by it and say, "Hey, that's where baby sleeps!" Then we will be in the car and motion to the backseat where the carseat is hooked up and say, "That's where baby rides!" Just today I drove Mrs. Noisewater by the hospital on her way to way to work, and she said, "Hey, Ken. That's where baby is going to be born." It's obvious the first time we say those things, then it's just repetitive, and after a while it's hilarious to us. I think because we both can't believe we are having a baby in a matter of weeks, maybe days!

And then back to vinyl again: Today's actual blog topic involves listening to the records that were on the turntable when I was a kid and recording my impressions now and memories then. My mom and dad were actually not that big on rock music. Their collection consists of a lot more jazz and classical. However, there were a handful of rock records that they would play, and my sister and I would spin those select few over-and-over.

1. Fleetwood Mac, "Rumors."



As a little kid, I'll be honest, the first thing that excited me about the record was the cover because Mick Fleetwood had a pair of balls dangling from strings like a nut sack. Balls were funny then, and they still are. And I like how Stevie Nicks gazes in the general direction of his dangling crawdads with a look of utmost sincerity. Within the lyric sheet insert there are a series of photographs, and in one there is a guy smoking a joint. I remember hearing at school how terrible and illegal drugs were, so I thought that by pressing this album, the police could go to that guy's house and arrest him for drug use. Isn't it weird how brainwashed and confused little Kenneth Noisewater was from public education?

There were two simultaneous break ups going on within Fleetwood Mac at the time they made "Rumours." Bass player John McVie and his wife, keyboard player and singer Christie McVie, were going through a divorce. Christie was seeing a new guy, and she wrote a song about her rejuvenated faith in love called "You Make Loving Fun." John had to play bass on a song about his wife being all excited about fucking someone new! This fueled his already heavy drinking. John would be one of the first guys into the studio to record his parts, and he would often be the first one done because he would pass out.

Lindsay Buckingham, singer and guitarist, was also splitting up with his girlfriend, singer and hippy-chick poet all-star, Stevie Nicks. Stevie was taking it really hard and wrote an amazing song called "Dreams" all about it. Not to be outdone, Lindsey wrote one too called "Go Your Own Way." So, four of the five members were having break-ups with each other, and that left drummer, Mick Fleetwood, who was in the midst of a failing marriage with his wife. The pain and heartache all five members were experiencing at the time could have spelt disaster, but it was instead channeled into a catharsis that became one of the best albums in rock history; certainly the best break up album. In fact, all five members are given writing credit for an extremely moving piece of music called "The Chain." That's one of those songs that even as a 7-year-old kid, nowhere near dating any chicks or having any breakups of my own, I knew that song was somehow important. It was just majestic.

2. My sister and I probably played Three Dog Night the most. I remember big sister and her friend made a dance routine to "One," of all songs, and would play it over-and-over again to rehearse their steps. My parents still talk about a trip we took to Pittsburgh where us two and the kids of our family friends were spontaneously singing "Joy To the World" during any downtime. I didn't know at the time, but Three Dog Night was a cover band. I loved "Try a Little Tenderness" as a youngster and had no idea that Otis Redding did it first. "Celebrate," and "Old Fashioned Love Song" we also liked. We thought "Eli's Coming" was about some sort of bad boogie man type coming to get everyone. Then up until recently I thought it was a song warning people against a cock block buddy of his. Allow me to explain.

What he's really saying:

"Eli's coming, hide your heart girl."

What I thought he was saying:

"Eli's coming, hide your hot girl."

Not at all about a cock block. My apologies. 

3. My mom and dad had only one Rolling Stones album called "Gimme Shelter." One side, to my recollection, were recorded versions of "Gimme Shelter," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Street Fighting Man," "Honkey Tonk Woman," and "Love In Vain." The other side was a collection of live songs, the only which I know for sure were "Satisfaction" and "Under My Thumb." My sister and I rarely gave that side a spin.

What I do remember is feeling so sad when I heard "Love In Vain." It's a Robert Johnson cover. He is the blues legend from the 1930's who was rumored to have sold his soul in exchange for a brief and wondrous career that would prove to be extraordinarily influential to blues and later rock music. There is only that one session of recordings and that one picture that we always see of the man. In any event, it wasn't just Jagger's pained vocals that struck a chord, so to speak, with me. Mick Taylor's slide guitar was wailing away in anguish in a way 7-year-old Ken just didn't hear on the 1980's radio stations that were playing Kajagoogoo around that time.



My parents threw out all their records some time in the early 2000's, but I have since tracked down my own copies of some of them. However, I don't have that same Stones record. What I have is "Let It Bleed," largely because of that "Love In Vain" cover is one there. In a case of tragic music-lover irony, the only song on either side that skips is none other than "Love In Vain."

It's all the more a sad song to hear Mick keeps saying

"I followed her to the station . . . With a suitcase in my hand (hic), in my hand (hic), in my hand (hic), in my hand (hic) . . ."

My Coworker's Mom's Ex Boyfriend: A Bookie for the Mob

I went out to lunch during a work day, and I saw one of my coworkers sitting in a booth.  He eats there just about every Monday through Friday.  Even if I really wanted to sit by myself and read about Chicago sports and text jokes to my friends, the right thing to do was go sit by him.  I just didn't feel like hearing him bitch about work because getting out of the office for lunch is a time to think about anything but the office.  Actually, he may have been thinking, "Oh crap.  Here comes Dr. Ken to come saddle in here and make annoying observations for his stupid blog."  That's entirely possible.  Sometimes I wish people could be honest with each other and just ask, "mind if I join you?" and the other person could respond either way without hurting anyone's feelings.

So this guy was telling me how excited he was to go to the Kentucky Derby with some friends to drink a ton and bet a bunch of money on little men riding on horses running around in a circle.  He really likes gambling.  He spends every few Saturdays at a race track near his house drinking three dollar beers and betting every race until the joint closes.  He really seems to know his stuff, but then again, gamblers never seem to tell you about the times they lost.

I asked him how he got so knowledgeable about betting the ponies, and apparently his mom's ex boyfriend would take him to the track when he was a kid, starting when he was around eleven years old, and schooled him on how to research and pick a winning bet.  The mom's boyfriend used to be a bookie for the mob, but he had left that life behind to drive a taxi cab.  Still, it was still strange that he drove a taxi in the suburbs but somehow always had giant wads of one hundred dollar bills wherever he went.  I guess he was a pretty great guy, and he took my coworker out for a steak dinner and gave him two hundred bucks for his birthday every year.  Even after his mom and the guy broke up, this dude continued to take him out for his birthday dinner until my coworker was around 19-years-old.  That is around the time his health started failing and he soon passed away.  I think he was a little bit older than the mom.

I asked why it didn't work out, and he said, "I don't know because he was a really great guy.  I think my mom was just too much to deal with."

I said, "So the ex (but probably current) bookie for the mob wasn't the problem in the relationship; your mom was."

"Yeah, pretty much," he said, finishing the last few bites of his omelette and getting a look at his check.

Remembering Tiamat

I was tired at work the other day and said to myself "Man, I am draggin' like Tiamat." Tiamat is the only dragon I could think of at the time, although Smaug is one more people would know given the popularity of "Lord of the Rings."  Still, I like to let my inner nerd shine by referencing the Dungeons & Dragons mythical beast and one of the stars of the 1980's Saturday morning cartoon series.

Also, Tiamat represents a dark day in my past when I was around 8-years-old and snuck down to the Christmas tree before my parents woke up to find that I had the toy Tiamat, the five-headed dragon!  I yelled "Tiamat!" and my sister, my partner in crime that morning, told me to keep my voice down.  All that hard work my parents went through assembling those toys and laying them out, and they didn't get to see my genuine reaction.  When we got back out of bed to open gifts as a family, I had to fake the surprise of seeing Ms. Tiamat under the tree and scream her name a second time and fain the same level of enthusiasm.  All five heads appeared to be shaking their heads in their disapproval of my treachery and disappointment in my lackluster acting performance to conceal it.

I damn near just ordered this shirt. 

I played fricking Dungeons & Dragons as a kid.  I'll admit it.  It's cool to like knights and dragons again, I suppose, with the popularity of Game of Thrones now, but all you have to do there is flip on the television and talk about it at work on Monday.  D & D was a big commitment.  But I didn't mind rolling dice, reading all the rules, getting out the graph paper, and creating a character with all his/her attributes.  I'll admit it.  And I still remember all five heads that Tiamat had, the color of dragons, their breath weapons, and the order of how strong they were from strongest to weakest.  Observe:

1. Red: Fire.
2. Blue: Lightning.
3. Green: Poison Gas.
4. Black: Acid.
5. White: Ice Blast.

Shit.  I think I mixed up a few.  My nerd powers are waning over the years.

I always wonder what the stomachs were like for those green and black dragons to be able to belch up acid and poison gas.  What must their farts smell like?  Actually, in the case of Tiamat, all five heads shared the same body, as well as the same dragon butthole.  Do you think she could turn around and blast out all five breath weapons at once out of her butt?  How many hit points of damage would that do?

(Notice he tucks in his legs to avoid injury?  This isn't his first rocket blast fart joy ride.)

And this free association random-ass blog post has led us to . . . dragon farts.  Why not?

Vote Early and Vote Often For the Reverend.

I like to think that I have always had some influence over people with the use of my charm and wit.  This dates back to the time in the 5th grade where our class had an election to vote in the primary election for the president of the United States.  During the weeks of campaigning, we made posters to hang up and tried to get others to vote for our guy, mine being Jesse Jackson.  I'm not sure why I chose him for my horse in this race, but I guess I have always just liked Black people.  If it is proof you are looking for, I had a Black Cabbage Patch Doll and my favorite G.I. Joe was Roadblock.

Looking back, it was rather racist that being the Black G.I. Joe, he rapped his dialog.

After the votes had all been added up, our teacher asked us why so many of us voted that way, and the students couldn't really put it into words.  I kicked back in my chair, folded my hands behind my head and smiled, loving what I had created.

"I need that 11-year-old white kid vote!"

I have always used my influence for good instead of evil, and I have had mixed results over the years, but perhaps my greatest achievement will always be convincing 20 to 30 upper-middle class, suburban 11-year-old white kids with conservative parents to vote for the Reverend Jesse Jackson. 

Hey, everyone.  I woke up from a nap today and decided I needed to write this.  Hope you enjoy it.  Oh, and to answer the questions from the last post:

1. Yup.  Golf carts are everywhere.  Locals own them, but mostly it is the tourists driving minimal distances.  I would say there were more golf carts than actual cars out there.

2. The pigs were causing too many problems and were all killed off years ago.

3. The buffalo are still there, but you have to get way inland to see them.  They were brought there to film a movie a long time ago, but the movie's budget ran out, so they just left them there, where they have grown in numbers ever since.

4. Yeah, we said that a few times.  We also learned that Marilyn Monroe lived on Catalina for a while before World War Two, Natalie Wood drowned near there, and at one time most of the island was owned by William Wrigley Jr., also the owner of the gum company and the Chicago Cubs.  As a result, the Cubs used to play their spring training games there.

Okay, anyway.  Here's that story that I just wrote that I was telling you about.  Hope you like it:

My mood was that of a sour funk as I walked through the snow past the grades school I went to as a kid, when I slipped on something and had to catch myself with my bare hand, which landed directly into an inch or two of cold snow and concrete.  But there was something in my hand too, it was plastic, horseshoe shaped, and as I looked around, there must have been ten or twelve of them.  It took a second or two for it to dawn on me that they were plastic mouthguards for football and then another few seconds before I put it together that they were there because that class of 5th and 6th graders on the football team had thrown them on the roof at the end of their season, just as I had 20-something years ago.  Dropping that mouthguard into the hot water and popping that hot plastic into your mouth, you felt like a knight preparing his sword for battle, and whipping it up on the roof at the end of a hard fought seasons was an important ceremonial right of passage.  

Our coach back then was a little off his rocker.  He had a crazed look in his eye when he would yell at you where you would not be the least bit surprised if he suddenly wrapped his hands around a scrawny 11-year-old neck.  His rants were often tangental, and looking back, I'm not even sure if he remembered what it was he was mad about by the end of one his motivational browbeatings.  He would get so flustered and outraged at our lack of discipline and athletic ability, that he would get speechless; just angry stairs, looking around at each and every one of us for what seemed like thirty minutes at a stretch, but was probably closer to one or two.  

My hand and the rest of me wasn't even cold anymore, and after all that reminiscing about mouth guards, my coach, and wearing football pads for the first time with my girdle pad slipping off my ass as I tried to keep up during wind sprints, that just like that ranting and pausing coach so long ago, I wasn't even sure what I was mad about to begin with.  

The 2 Bite Wonder

When I was grocery shopping tonight I saw some cartoon character popsicles, and I got thinking of one of the most legendary events ever to happen in a grade school lunch, ever, anywhere in the country.

A kid in my 5th or 6th grade class ate a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar in two bites. If you'll recall, Mickey's ears were chocolate covered (although the one pictured is fully chocolate covered) and about 3 to 4 inches wide. He ate the flipping ears in one bite, angling each ear in his mouth until it was all in there. Then he ate Mickey's face with his second bite. Done.

After that he had the hugest ice cream headache ever known to mankind, and he had to be rushed to the hospital. No, he wasn't taken to the hospital, but he was in such severe pain, and his brain was frozen to such a marked degree that he was mentally and physically out of it for the next few classes.

The novelty ice cream eating champion of the free world ended up going to a different high school, but I heard he would go to parties with his own case of beer and wouldn't share with anyone. So, as it turns out, he was gluttonous with ice cream AND beer. I would say that he went on to bigger and better things, but knowing what little I know about him, I think that the Mickey Mouse Bar inhaling may still be his crowning achievement.

Vicar in a Tutu

So I'm having pizza at Pizzeria Due in Chicago, unbelievably good pizza by the way, and my eight-year-old nephew turns to me and says, "Uncle Gancer, you dressed like a girl when you were little." WOW! Where in the hell did that come from? Well, I'll tell you.

I have just one sibling, my older sister. There were days when I was really young, before I had started school and met many friends, and I was attention starved. Just to give you an idea, here's another funny incident before my foray into cross-dressing started. My sister had a friend over, and my dad demanded that they play with me. So he comes back an hour or so later and I'm in my room and my sister and her friend are in her room. My dad is all pissed and says to her, "I thought I said you had to play with him!" She responds, "We are. We're playing house and he's the next-door-neighbor." I guess I was just chilling in my "house," praying to God my neighbors needed to borrow some sugar at some point, or maybe I was playing the part of Larry and would later try to convince them to go to the Regal Beagle. This sad tale shows you a few things.

1. I would do just about anything if it meant my sister was paying attention to me
2. I was easily tricked

So, one day she convinces me to play dress-up with her. The next thing I know I have make-up on, my hair done up, a tutu around my waist, and I'm spinning around like the gayest, little boy ever to dive into Swan Lake.

Well, my sadistic parents must have seen this as a good opportunity to take photos, probably for future black mailing purposes, and those very photos must have been the ones my nephew saw. It's kind of a sad day when your eight-year-old nephew is busting on you . . .